ASEAN may speed up regional free trade
JAKARTA (JP): The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is set to implement the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) by the year 2000, speeding up targeted tariff reductions by three years.
Indonesian, Thai and Filipino officials yesterday expressed their optimism about the acceleration of the regional free trade program.
"We will try to speed up its implementation so that by the year 2000 most of the tariffs could be reduced to a maximum of 5 percent," Coordinating Minister for Production and Distribution Hartarto told reporters following a meeting with President Soeharto at Merdeka Palace yesterday.
Upon arrival here for tomorrow's ASEAN ministerial meeting, the Thai and Philippine foreign ministers also supported the idea.
Thai Foreign Minister Amnuay Viravan said that ASEAN could fast-tract tariff reduction for many products, so that they could be traded within ASEAN with zero to five percent tariffs by 2000.
"Maybe a number of products will observe the original date of 2003. But, this is the process which should be a special benefit for the people in ASEAN," Viravan told journalists.
Philippine Foreign Minister Domingo L. Saizon said his country would support the acceleration of tariff reductions since there was a strong desire by everyone in ASEAN for free trade.
Hartarto, however, said that the association's economic ministers, who will meet here in September, would not change the existing timetable for the trade liberalization in the region, which is for 2003.
At the fifth ASEAN Summit Meeting in Bangkok last year, the association's leaders decided to accelerate trade liberalization under AFTA from 15 years to 10 years. According to this new schedule, AFTA would be achieved by 2003 instead of 2008.
In addition to the implementation of AFTA, Hartarto said the ASEAN economic ministers would discuss subregional cooperation among its members.
ASEAN members have developed three subregional growth centers in the last five years to stimulate local business activity.
The first growth center is called the Indonesia-Malaysia- Singapore Growth Triangle which links Riau province, Batam, Singapore and Johor state of Malaysia. The second subregional zone is called the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle which connects North and West Sumatra, the southern provinces of Thailand and the western states of Malaysia.
The latest zone is the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia- Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area which includes Central and South Kalimantan, Central, South and Southeast Sulawesi, Sarawak of Malaysia, Brunei and the southern provinces of the Philippines.
Hartarto said that ASEAN's economic ministers would seek to extend subregional cooperation and study ways to enhance the governments' support for existing subregional cooperation.
He said that the current ASEAN Economic Ministerial Meeting would be followed by a meeting with representatives of the association's dialogue partners: Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
The association's economic ministers will also attend an informal summit meeting in Bogor in December this year.
ASEAN comprises seven Southeast Asian nations -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and its newest member Vietnam.(hen/rid)